Personnel

First recorded and left off the Help! album, ‘Wait’ was exhumed during the final day’s recording for Rubber Soul, nearly five months later.

‘Wait’ was written while The Beatles were filming Help! in the Bahamas, and was originally intended for inclusion in the soundtrack. Paul McCartney recalled writing the song in the presence of actor and former child star Brandon de Wilde.

He was a nice guy who was fascinated by what we did. A sort of Brat Pack actor. We chatted endlessly, and I seem to remember writing ‘Wait’ in front of him, and him being interested to see it being written. I think it was my song. I don’t remember John collaborating too much on it, although he could have.

Paul McCartneyMany Years From Now, Barry Miles

The reason why ‘Wait’ was unused for Help! is unclear. It’s possible that it was omitted in favour of ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, which had been recorded specifically for the North American market, when The Beatles decided that the Help! album required a suitably rousing finale.

When the group found themselves needing a fourteenth song for Rubber Soul, they added extra percussion, vocals and guitar to make it sound more like a late-1965 Beatles recording.

In the studio

The Beatles recorded four takes of ‘Wait’ on 17 June 1965, only the last of which was complete. They recorded guitars, drums and bass, along with the lead vocals, shared by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

On 11 November they added more vocals, plus extra guitar (played with a volume pedal), tambourine and maracas, with which it was ready for release on Rubber Soul.

Latest Comments

I never noticed that before, the rising melodic intro. On the contrary, it would seem to work in the two songs’ favour, lending unity to two otherwise disparate songs — a unity that might not be so obvious were they further apart on the record.

ginny, that wierd sound in a “volume tone pedal” like what was used on “yes is is”
From BB “Yes It Is was recorded on 16 February 1965. On the same day The Beatles also completed I Need You, with both songs featuring George Harrison’s distinctive volume-pedal guitar work”

Personally I do not like the sound and I dont think the Beatles were to crazy about it either as they, as far as I know, never used it again.

Back in the 70s there was a Beatles book published called “Things We Said Today” which basically was a concordance of Beatles words and lyrics. There was also section in the book which was devoted to naming the actual principal composers of the songs. This particular book gave sole songwriting credit of WAIT to Lennon!! Nevertheless, I was always skeptical of this.

It may be worth noting that “Wait” was begun near the tail end of the Help! sessions, which had already spanned five months. They would certainly have been under pressure to finish this project, with a projected release date a mere month away. They would also have known that this track couldn’t supersede any of the Side 1 material because this was the movie’s songtrack and all the musical sequences were already shot — Lester’s latest work was nearing completion at this point. If “Wait” replaced anything on the album it would have to have been on side two, and most likely would be one of Paul’s songs to maintain the balance of power: he had three compositions to John’s one, George’s one, and Ringo’s one (though, on the movie soundtrack side, Paul has only has two songs to John’s four and George’s one).

I like this one. Its great how John and Paul alternate the vocal part. Further more I agree with Mike that “Wait” is far better than some of the Help-Stuff, but the song does fit much better to Rubber Soul.

Pure speculation here, but highly likely IMO: John wrote only the chorus “It’s been a long time, now I’m, coming back home…” (11 notes) which repeats. Paul wrote the chorus “Wait…!” and the break “I feel as though…” This would account for Paul recalling that he wrote it even though John had a big part in it. This could all be nonsense.

The lyrics rhyme “It´s been a long TIME now I´M” are the same as “I´ll be back” (this TIME I will try to show that I´M)so I´m sure John had a lot of work on the writing on this one. Paul must have written the bridge where he sings lead doubletracking

It is interesting to think of this as being close to a ‘filler’. Whilst I don’t think it is anywhwere near the strongest track on the album, it was strangely the first track to grab me when i first listened to the album. Bizarrely I got talking to a stranger in a pub a couple of months ago and got onto the topic of The Beatles – within 5 minutes we were singing Wait. Most Beatles fan I talk to don’t seem to have even heard of it!

It was normal for John to insert depressing lyrics in otherwise upbeat songs, and he also was familiar with the subject of being away from home.
When I Get Home and It Won’t Be Long coming to mind.
John sings the lead on both the verses and chorus, singing the first words of every verse solo

Paul wrote the middle eight, the most upbeat part of the song.
“I’ll trust in you / I know that you will wait for me”
But because he sings it solo, rather than harmonizing with John, people assume it’s Paul’s song

“Wait” is a song released by the Beatles, on their 1965 album Rubber Soul. The songwriting credit is Lennon–McCartney, and the song is usually said to be a joint effort between the two, although in the 1997 book, Many Years from Now, McCartney recalls it as entirely his.[1] This is supported by a 1970 interview with John Lennon by Ray Connolly. John could not remember writing it. “That must be one of Paul’s,” he said.

These statements back up what is said in this article above:

“Paul McCartney recalled writing the song in the presence of actor and former child star Brandon de Wilde.

He was a nice guy who was fascinated by what we did. A sort of Brat Pack actor. We chatted endlessly, and I seem to remember writing Wait in front of him, and him being interested to see it being written. I think it was my song. I don’t remember John collaborating too much on it, although he could have.

Lennon acolytes have a serious complex. John doesn’t remember writing the song five years later and Paul says his help was minimal or nonexistent… you’d think that would be enough. But because some early Beatles books speculated it was cowritten or John’s and deep down they want it to be John’s (even though it’s only satisfactory by Beatles standards), they’re still so incredulous… Paul couldn’t have written this song alone! Paul couldn’t have helped John write It Won’t Be Long or Help or In My Life. They won’t budge an inch and they’re typically either criticizing Paul’s songs or indignantly trying to preserve John’s legacy. I love John but this kind of neurosis from his fanboys makes me like him less.

Funny. It sounds to me more like they hadn’t figured it out and just stumbled to an ending.
Wasn’t good enough for “Help!” and was added at the last minute to “Rubber Soul” to fill that out. Kinda tells the tale.

Regardless wether this is a joint collaboration or not between John and Paul, I think this song already “belonged to Rubber Soul when it was recorded on the last session of Help.

I think it´s incredible how the arrangement expresses the insecureness of the bridge, with its crescendo parts , and how it stops dryly on the verses, with the pessimistic section of the song. It also recalls the alternation between Lennon and McCartney on We Can Work It Out.

Lately I’ve begun to feel that this is an early example (perhaps the earliest) of Lennon and McCartney writing incomplete songs and fusing them. As L-H fan says above, the verses are pure John and the middle eight sounds so much like Paul. However, instead of being co-written, which implies eyeball to eyeball or whatever passed for it at that point in the partnership, I believe it might have been brought together as two different compositions that they decided fit together.

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